Tuesday, July 31, 2007

How to start off this post. I'm not sure. One of the things that you will find out about me is that I have this innate ability to be 100 percent self confessional. Even when it sounds silly. Even when it's something I would rather not admit to. Especially something that makes me lose all vestiges of any coolness you might have had of me. Enough. Let's get to the point. I got busted. Looking at porn. Absolutely ruined my weekend and almost my relationship.

Having said that I have absolutely nothing against porn. This isn't a "Oh my God, I'm sorry for my egregious sinning, please strike me with a lightning bolt" kind of posts. This is more of a "I know my girlfriend has a problem with it yet I ignored her wishes and did it anyway" kind of posts. That's the "sin". I know my girl absolutely hates it. She has issues with it. I did it anyway on our computer and she found out.

I'm at work on Friday night about midnight when I get a text on my phone. "YOU GOT BUSTED! IT"S OVER!" Then another telling me where my clothes and money were. As in, they and you are no longer in the house. She won't answer my texts or calls. I leave work because I'm more than a little upset about the situation and the welfare of my meager possessions. I get a hold of Anna (one of my best friends in NA, like my sister) and she comes and picks me up, takes me to where my things are, and takes me home with her.

She won't talk to me for 2 days. She will text me but won't tell me what I did. Here's where poker sometimes gets me in real life trouble. I'm not going to cop to watching porn if I'm not sure that is what she is mad about. I've got my poker face on and I think she's bluffing. Maybe some pre-menstrual stab at trying to get some weird ass confession of adultery from me.

To make a long story somewhat shorter she finally breaks down on Sunday evening and shows me the nuts. The stupid sites I was going to were leaving cookies on the computer. I had no idea. She has me dead to rights but I'm still pissed. I was still displaced for 2 days. I missed a couple of days of work. I had to inconvenience my friends and my pops. I don't even think of watching porn as a moral issue.

Here's the rub. She does think of it as a moral issue. She thinks of it as a sign that if I lie to her about this I will lie to her about something else. She hates the idea that I am looking at other women. She's Hispanic and pre menstrual. I know that. I should know better. I should take her feelings into consideration. I'm not always the best at that although I am getting better.

The final result is that we had a good long conversation about porn, lying, and our commitment to each other on Sunday night. Everything is straightened out for now. I won't watch porn. Not because their is anything wrong with it. Because it hurts my baby. She's too special to let get away. That's enough.

Friday, July 27, 2007

San Diego is smoking hot. I don't know the actual temperature but I know that I have no air conditioning and I am downing a propel an hour. I love those things. The problem is it's too hot to sleep. I slept for about 3 hours after I got home. I woke up a sweaty mess. Now I can't go back to sleep. I go to church tonight (Sunday mornings I can't keep my eyes open after work) and then it's off to work.

I'm teaching myself how to play Omaha. I've found there's a couple of different variations. I've been having a lot of beginner's luck because I am consistently having winning sessions. I'm really enjoying the game, it's fun to learn something new and not have it cost you tons to learn it.

Yesterday, I drove over to The Lady Luck and sat down at a $3-6 limit hold'em table. The same guys I have been seeing for the last 3 years. I won a big hand early when my A-6s ran into a A-A-x-6 board. Here's the funny thing. Maybe my thinking's wrong on this. I'm playing against this old guy I see a lot in there. He's been leading the betting. So I check to him, he bets out and I raise. He mucks his hand and storms off on tilt to have a smoke. I could have really run the guy into the ground if I had wanted to. I check-raised him to save him some chips. At least I thought I did. I guess there's no such thing as a friendly check-raise. Sigh.

I must have drawn the wrath of the poker gods for the next 10 hands however as I couldn't win a hand to save my life, I was down to my last $15 from an original $100 buy in and put my last chips in with pocket 7's. I hit a 7 on the turn to win the hand, went on a mini rush, got myself back over even and cashed the hell out. There's no worse feeling than getting your money back and then giving it all back. I came up $6 for the 3 hours I was there. Another big win for the bubster.

Thursday, July 26, 2007

I had the day off yesterday so I cruised up to Viejas to play in the $20 limit tournament they have every Wednesday morning. Got there about 8:30, checked in and sat down to some $3-6 action. They have a cool little promo if you get there that early. If you play for an hour you get $5 off your entry fee, a $10 dollar voucher if you go to the river in a live hand at the cash game and an extra $1,000 in starting chips for the tourney. It's a great deal and I like warming up with a little live action. I played my usual tight-aggressive game and I was up like $10 before having to take my seat for the tournament.

The tournament started off well for me. I had the chip lead at my table after the first 3 levels. The levels go up every 15 minutes. I scooped a couple of monster pots and collected 5 bounties (they pay $5 bounties for every player that you knock out). My table broke and I was moved to a table where I was about in the middle as far as chip counts go. I also went card dead. I was blinding off chips to about half of what I came to the table with. I semi-bluffed on a low pair and a straight draw against the small and big blinds they folded and I was safe. I was still card dead but was able to limp myself to the final table with 2 chips. 1 through 10 get paid, I just made it. 4 hands later 3 people had gone out, I had moved up to 6th and got blinded out. It paid $105. I ended up giving $60 dollars back to the damn one armed bandits (actually no armed bandits). I dragged myself out of there, came home, and took my baby out to a nice delicious Sizzler dinner. We be high-rolling. Actually, my steak was perfect and Letty enjoyed her teryaki steak, chicken and shrimp. All in all a good poker day off.

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

I've probably doomed myself by putting God in the title of my blog. Probably depends on what I'm looking to get out of this. "To thine own self be true." OK, God it is then. My problem is that I love Poker. And God. And a whole bunch of other things that I adore from time to time. I'm not the greatest player, not the greatest writer, and definitely not the greatest Christ follower around either. Obviously. I've got a lot of issues. Children, addiction, alcoholism and gambling (the non poker variety) just to name a few.

I'm hoping that with this blog maybe I can bring all these things together in some kind of cohesive, smooth running machine. Yeah, who am I trying to kid. It's more that I enjoy the act of writing and the meeting of new people and sometimes actually posting something halfway decent. I can always dream.

The poker part of me: I've been playing pretty consistently for the last 4 years. I started playing online in 2004 in play money games that my boss at the time turned me on to. I graduated to playing cash tournaments at Viejas. Unfortunately, it was probably my 5th tournament and I accidentally went ahead and won. I've been hooked ever since. I played (and play) in cash games at Viejas, The Lady Luck, sometimes Barona and Sycuan. I nickel and dime it online (especially since I can't figure a way to get money onto my Epassporte account). Overall, I'm definitely in the black for poker which continues to amaze me.

The God part of me: The only way to do this is to put it in black and white. Maybe I will add a link to my old blog so that you can see what a mess I was. I've been playing in bands since I was 19 years old. I've had 5 kids with 4 different women. I'd developed a nasty alcohol and drug habit not to mention smoking 2 packs of cigarettes a day. I'd shrunk up to the point where I was fitting into size 28 jeans and they were loose. About 115 pounds soaking wet. Sores, speech problems, nervous tics, a general dark cloud over my head. I'd been messing with NA and AA since I was a teenager but it never stuck for more than a couple of years. In May 2005 I was at the end of my rope. I didn't want to live anymore. I was in a nightmare relationship that had me to the point where I was actually calling people's homes and threatening to kill them. I could barely work and I was living in the basement of my employer's house. (Thanks Gene, you were and are a life saver). I finally stopped everything on May 1st, 2005. My clean date. I started going to meetings with my guitar player and just didn't pick up. I did all the suggestions (except work the steps with a sponsor, oops) and haven't had the desire to pick up.

Oh yeah, where does God come into all of this? I started talking to this girl I met online in March of 2006. Craig's list to be exact. She was funny, I loved the way she talked, and attractive. Oh, and she was a Christian. Ugh. I believed that there was a divine presence in the universe but Jesus? Thank God she didn't make a big deal about it. She was much too clever for that. She kept inviting me to go to church with her but I would beg off with one excuse or another. Finally, one day I decided to keep an open mind (and to keep her happy) I went. I was scared. These aren't my kind of people. I felt like they could all see the evil that was in me. Finally the band started and my church experience turned into a rock concert. Huh? I was expecting either solemn hymns or folk rock john denver style of music. It was more like U2. That piqued my curiosity. Then the pastor gave his talk. A down to earth, normal talk based on the bible. It made sense. They got my guard down. Did I mention that while this was happening I was drinking a mocha in the service that I had bought when we were walking in? Good music, a nice talk, A Starbucks quality mocha? Did I mention very progressive church?

I enjoyed it. I still wasn't convinced about the Jesus as my personal savior but I kept going back. The message of the church stayed consistent. They weren't trying to force anything. They didn't want my money. They let me come to God on my own. Novel approach that worked. I don't remember the exact day that I turned my life over to Christ, I remember that it was at the end of the service and Pastor Ed asked if anyone wanted to turn their life over to Christ to please raise their hand so he could pray with us. I did and he did and that's where I am at today. I'm not a bible thumper. I'm not judgemental. I think it's God's job not mine. I have found some peace in my life that I've never experienced. Sometimes I believe that is just old age, most of the time I think it's God. I do have doubts. I do waver in my belief. I'm human. I have a hard time when people say that they don't. I try absolutely to remain humble and not be a hypocrite.

That's my story up to this point. This blog is probably not going to be G rated. I have lots of stories and I'm still not perfect although I have moved from a rated X live to maybe a PG. Thanks if you have read any of this and I hope to make a lot of new friends in the months to come.